The US and China have finalized a trade framework, thought to cover both rare earth and export controls, the Chinese Ministry of Commerce confirmed on Friday (June 27).

President Trump said earlier in the week that an agreement had been signed, but a White House official later clarified that the two countries had just agreed to “an additional understanding of a framework to implement the Geneva agreement.”

The announcement comes a month after the US and China engaged in trade talks in Geneva, with the aim of reducing tariffs that both countries had placed on each other, kicked off earlier this year by the US.

Those initial talks fell apart, however, following disagreements over China’s decision to place export restrictions on rare earth minerals critical to auto and aerospace manufacturers as well as the semiconductor industry.

Following the collapse, the US government placed additional export controls on the sale of semiconductor design software to China.

US Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick met with Chinese vice-premier He Lifeng in London earlier this month to continue the Geneva talks, and it’s as a result of that meeting that a deal appears to have been reached.

Speaking to Bloomberg News on June 26, Lutnick said: “They’re going to deliver rare earths to us... [and when they do] we’ll take down our countermeasures.”

Lutnick also told Bloomberg that Trump was preparing to finalize a number of trade deals over the next two weeks, ahead of the July 9 deadline set by the US when it plans to reinstate the original “liberation day” tariff rates.

“We’re going to do top ten deals, put them in the right category, and then these other countries will fit behind,” he said. While he did not name the countries, trade officials from India and Japan are expected to meet with US government officials in Washington next month.

“Those who have deals will have deals, and everybody else that is negotiating with us, they’ll get a response from us, and then they’ll go into that package,” Lutnick told Bloomberg. “If people want to come back and negotiate further, they’re entitled to, but that tariff rate will be set, and off we’ll go.”

Unveiled in April, the original tariff rates place a baseline tariff of 10 percent on imported goods coming into the US, with countries described as “the worst offenders” in terms of trade deficit facing higher tariffs on a sliding scale.

In mid-April, Trump placed retaliatory tariffs of up to 245 percent on China. Currently, the rate against China sits at 55 percent. Tariffs are paid by the importer not the exporter.

The UK government signed a trade deal with the US in May, under which the US agreed to reduce tariffs on British aluminium and steel from 25 percent to zero, and from 27.5 percent to 10 percent on UK-made cars.